This Chart Showing Welfare Dependency Will Ruin Your Day

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The Senate Budget Committee Republican staff under Ranking Member Jeff Sessions [R-AL] on Wednesday released this depressing chart:

Are you serious? Over 110,000,000* in the U.S. are currently receiving some form of government welfare?

“The federal government administers nearly 80 different overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs. Social Security and Medicare are not part of this category and not included in the figures in this chart,” a statement released on Wednesday by Sen. Sessions’ office reads.

“[S]ince 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011,” according to a statement released on Wednesday by Sen. Sessions’ office.

But here’s our favorite part: “Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach nearly $800 billion over the next decade.”

Oh, $800 billion. Great, that’s, uh, swell.

The statement continues:

These figures include not only citizens, but non-citizens as well. For instance, USDA has acknowledged a formal partnership with Mexico to boost food stamp enrollment amongst non-citizens, migrant workers and foreign nationals. In a ‘radio novela’ USDA even depicted an individual who resisted food stamp enrollment (saying her husband earned enough to take care of them) but who was successfully pressured into enrollment.

*From Sen. Sessions Office: “These figures do not include other means-tested benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premium subsidies included in the President’s health care law.”